Creativity in schools

Ken Robinson rightly quotes: If your not prepared to be wrong - you will never come up with something original. There is a danger that schools are killing creativity.(https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

“All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” — Pablo Picasso. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/07/child-art/

Creativity is also about creating something original and useful and is not limited to the arts.

Bill Gates suggests that  "Innovation has been & will continue to be the key to improving the world."

https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Accelerating-Innovation

21st Century learning skills to instil creativity.

The four essentials for raising are a creative child are allowing the child personal time,  to fail, to play, and to have lots of opportunities to invent and create. You can't teach "creativity" as a special class like music or PE.  

To facilitate creativity learning must include collaboration, using a diverse environment, allowing time, providing resources, the emotional acceptance and encouragement of failure and the ability to accept interdisciplinary change and not that the only most important subjects are Mathematics, English and Science. There also needs to be more curiosity, more opportunities for divergent thinking, generating unique solutions and seeing various possibilities, less standardised testing, less linear thinking, memorising facts, follow instructions, and a one right answer approach. In Finland they do this well.

Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?

Finland has vastly improved in reading, math and science literacy over the past decade. There are no mandated standardised tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded.

The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians.

Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town.

The differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46581035.pdf

Finland is one of the world’s leaders in the academic performance of its secondary school students, a position it has held for the past decade. This top performance is also remarkably consistent across schools. Finnish schools seem to serve all students well, regardless of family background, socio-economic status or ability. There is a political consensus to educate all children together in a common school system; an expectation that all children can achieve at high levels, regardless of family background or regional circumstance; single-minded pursuit of teaching excellence; collective school responsibility for learners who are struggling; modest financial resources that are tightly focused on the classroom and a climate of trust between educators and the community

“Equality is the most important word in Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union.

“We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. “We are not much interested in PISA. It’s not what we are about.”

Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers. Teachers use the extra time to build curriculums and assess their students. Children spend far more time playing outside, even in the depths of winter. Homework is minimal. Compulsory schooling does not begin until age 7. “We have no hurry,” said Louhivuori. “Children learn better when they are ready. Why stress them out?”

In Finland, pedagogy is an art form - not a delivery system for the testing providers.   It is a learner community which works best when teachers and students work together collaboratively.

The role of technology in creativity

How do we prepare people to be creative where there is so much knowledge out there through technology?  Google, Wikipedia .. 

It isn’t enough to just know or be able to find content - it’s also about the human experience. Technology has empowered teachers to redefine teaching and save a lot of instructional time. A great teacher can inspire the instruct millions of students.  We still need great teachers to inspire creativity.

It’s also about building relationships with students which will enrich the educational experience for them.  Technology is not the whole answer. It can be a barrier if learning environments do not include outdoor education, running around, playing, being close to nature. This is critical to creativity. Technology is important as it does free up time so that curriculum can be adapted to include the above. Climbing a tree can develop into a lesson on Ecology.

Learning environment

There is no doubt that real life learning also requires flexible learning spaces, not all open plan, but students also need time to be on their own to reflect, to think, and to create.

Large assembly places also allow democratic principles to become a reality, where students develop a substantial voice in decision making, curriculum design. Whats good for them. And how about mixing ages, children learn from each other - like real life? How about involving the community in the learning environment? A great school can energise a community.  Involving parents, specialists, businessmen, sports men, craftsmen  can also irrigate the culture of school, individualising the curriculum.

In schools there is a of of room for innovation if we think out of the box - become creative thinkers - let’s also think critically about the institutionalisation of education and start to identify strategies where we aim to do what is best for our students - some of who will graduate in 2034, and retire in 2080 and beyond.  

What will the world look like then?

Tassos Anastasiades